On January 26th 2020, hundreds of celebrities arrived in their finest for the self-proclaimed ‘biggest night in music.’

While most people were awaiting the announcement of this years ‘Album of the Year’, others were spending time watching the pre-show to see the “lesser cared for” categories being announced.

These categories represent a lot of genres, varying from gospel music to Latin music, children’s music to rock music, and country music to reggae. These categories are often snubbed, with many Twitter users responding angrily to the official Grammy’s accounts tweets with their unkind opinion on the artist, stating they’d much rather hear who was winning ‘Record of the Year’. This brought me to thinking, are the Grammy’s truly about talent anymore? Or are they merely rewarding the artists they know will keep the audience happy, and keep their show running?

In among the long running show’s beginning categories we see varying types of talents, from London based female-fronted rock bands, to teenage reggae stars from Jamaica. These stars are no less talented than the artists up for the bigger awards; yet they are shrugged off as if to say “well, we never asked to hear your voice anyway”.

This year, every tweet that didn’t feature Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift was completely shrugged off, disregarded and ignored, as if we can't appreciate the talents of a well-known artist and the talents of a lesser-known artist on the same night.

The Grammy’s were created to reward talented individuals from all around the globe, yet they consistently seem to focus on the same pop stars doing the rounds that year, which is a sure fire way to rope in masses of viewers.

Every artist who attended or was nominated was more than worthy of their nomination, whether they won or not, and it’s time the Grammy’s recognised that too. To honour smaller artists, to honour struggling artists who maybe feel they just got lucky with their nomination, artists who didn’t think they’d still be here and artists who just plain didn’t expect their music to escape their bedroom. It’s time we saw these artists share the stage with the big dogs; we should be able to see a diverse range of performers share the stage with chart toppers and show stoppers.

From gospel to pop, it’s time the biggest night in music became about music once again and gives us the diverse range we have on our phones a shot at the stage. Because the night should be about more than just hearing what we’ve heard, the Grammy’s should give us tasters of what we never thought we’d love and meeting new artists that might just be a brand new impact on our lives.